00:01Charlie Slows calling Dylan Cruz exploits.
00:05That was the 2025 baseball season.
00:09Cruz back in the big leagues for the first time this season,
00:12called up overnight by the Nationals.
00:14He will play for the first time this season against the Mets over at Nats Park
00:18this evening, 645 first pitch right here on the fan.
00:22You just heard Toby's update.
00:23So we've sent Toby out of the studio and over to Nats Park.
00:26Cruz will be meeting with the media in a few minutes.
00:29President of Baseball Operations, Paul DeBoney, is scheduled to talk today as well.
00:33And Blake Butera is going to address the return of Dylan Cruz.
00:37That is item A in what is a two-pronged conversation about the State of the Union
00:42here for the Nationals today.
00:43Because Cruz, who was the 2023 No. 2 overall pick,
00:49was sent to the minors during spring training and everybody was floored.
00:53It was shocking.
00:55Not because of how he was performing, because frankly,
00:58he was lost like last year's Easter egg at home plate.
01:00You and I were at spring training March 4th through the 8th.
01:03I don't know that we saw him have a good at-bat.
01:05He did.
01:06And, you know, it sounds like we're picking on the guy.
01:07He looked, as you said, he looked lost.
01:09Looked like he was fighting himself.
01:10Wasn't sure which way it was up.
01:12Whether it was trying to find a key in my stance or this part of my timing.
01:15He couldn't hit water if he was in the pool at that point.
01:19Cruz comes back to the majors.
01:21Cruz, now 24 years old, a career .211 hitter and .412 at-bats.
01:27And this regime has had their hands on him for several months.
01:30And what they sent him down to AAA to do, notably, was chase less.
01:35Let's make pitchers throw the ball in the strike zone.
01:38Get the ball off the ground.
01:40You've seen this with Jacob Young, who's already got a career high in home runs,
01:43as an example.
01:44But stop hitting the ball hard on the ground.
01:46That doesn't help anybody.
01:47Hit the ball hard in the air and pull the baseball in the air.
01:51These are some of the things they've been looking for him to do.
01:53Well, his numbers in the minor leagues have not been dominant by any means.
01:58He didn't go down there and hit .325 and force his way back to the show.
02:02That just wasn't in the cards.
02:04It doesn't appear.
02:05And frankly, Danny, he has not dominated at any level of the minor leagues,
02:08really, at any point, offensively.
02:10He was great in college, got on base in all 51 games in his final year,
02:14and was viewed as a can't-miss offensive player.
02:16But in the minors this year, he was hitting about .260 with five home runs
02:20and 150 at-bats.
02:21And he had a .777 OPS, which is well above minor league average.
02:25But again, not superstar-type stuff.
02:29What he did really well lately was get the ball in the air and pull it for extra
02:35base hits and some slug.
02:37And that was one of the things they've been working on.
02:39If you look at some of the metrics, though, from his time in the minors this year
02:43and then compare it to what he was doing last year, it's not that different.
02:48It's not like he's made massive statistical progressions in terms of ground ball rate
02:54or fly ball rate.
02:55It's negligible, but it's better, for sure.
02:58There's no doubt about that.
02:59But it's not night and day.
03:00So what I think happened was they sent him down.
03:03Let's get some confidence.
03:05Your swing is completely out of whack, and you're not ready to start the season.
03:09And here's the bonus, while working with our coaches kind of in anonymity, not struggling
03:14at the major league level, they saved a season of control of Dylan Cruz, who, if he was in
03:20the big leagues, a week or 10 days or 12 days ago, would have enough time the rest of this
03:25year to accrue a full season, and he would be one year closer to free agency.
03:30As of five days ago, any time after that, the Nats could call him back up, and there's
03:36not enough days left in the big league season for him to account for a year toward free
03:42agency.
03:42So they have now effectively saved themselves an extra year of Cruz on the back end of
03:48his contract before he hits free agency, which is a big deal.
03:52Which is a nice bonus to this.
03:53So, and again, it's not great for Cruz specifically, but for the Nationals, it makes sense.
03:57If a guy's tied in knots and you have this option and you can have him for longer under
04:02team control, which means you can trade him if you want.
04:04You can pay him if you want, you can do whatever you want.
04:07It makes perfect sense.
04:08It becomes against the spirit of this whole thing.
04:11If he was tearing the cover off the ball, hitting 399, you know, with a 1260 OPS down
04:17a AAA, leading the league and everything.
04:19And it's sort of like, come on, man, you're just manipulating service time.
04:21This is not the spirit.
04:22The union would get involved.
04:23Everyone's pissed.
04:24But while he's out there, you know, figuring out his butt from his elbow, you go, yeah,
04:27that's perfectly fine.
04:28And that's a nice bonus of another year of a winning player.
04:31And it's not like he was the best player on that team, you know, in Rochester.
04:35I mean, Yohani Morales, who's a third baseman in the minors, I think eventually he'll be
04:40a first baseman, but he's the best player on that team right now.
04:44He's hitting over 350 with an OPS over 1,000, and he can't seem to get the call just yet,
04:48even though they sent down third baseman Brady House.
04:50I would have thought the corresponding move may have been to call up Morales and give him
04:54a shot.
04:54But so far, that has not been the case.
04:56They're going to roll with veterans, Yorbit Vivas, and they're going to have Jose Tenna
05:01play a lot of third base as well.
05:03But to just keep the theme with Dylan Cruz for another moment, I do want to say, I think
05:11there's two different conversations that can be had about Dylan Cruz.
05:13The first is, this is going to be a very good, helpful major leaguer.
05:17Yep.
05:18He already was last year when he wasn't hitting it all, because he is a very good defensive
05:22player, and he is an exceptional base runner.
05:25And so he can steal bases.
05:27He does a lot of the little nuanced things that Nats players over the several years before
05:31this one have never been able to do on base.
05:33You're not going to see him get picked off.
05:35He's not going to get thrown out stealing a whole lot.
05:37He takes first to third.
05:38He gets good jumps and reads going first to home on gappers.
05:42Like, he is a winning, smart baseball player.
05:45That is a fact.
05:45Yep.
05:46So if you're hitting 211, that's a bummer, and that's not going to help.
05:50But see Nassim Nunez, who's leading the league in steals right now and is a plus defender
05:54at shortstop, he's still actually a helpful piece.
05:57He still has a positive war.
05:58This is a guy that, over the course of a year, can help you.
06:01And in the case of Cruz, who's got a lot more power, 20 home run type power, so the comp
06:07with Nass isn't particularly good because Nunez doesn't hit the ball over the fence, he's
06:11going to be a 20 homer, 30 steal potential player who plays really good defense.
06:15You might make an all-star team doing that.
06:17That's conversation one where I feel good about him as a helper, as a contributor, as
06:22a good winning ball player.
06:24But this was the number two overall pick.
06:27This was the can't miss guy.
06:29This was supposed to have been a face of the franchise with James Wood.
06:32This was the guy.
06:33They have gigantic pictures of him all over Nationals Park, plastered on every wall.
06:39And, you know, being a 215, 225 hitting, league average power guy in a corner outfield who's
06:48playing good defense ain't really what the doctor ordered at number two overall now, is
06:52it?
06:52So you can understand where the frustrations and the lack of patience from Nats fans has
06:57come from to an extent.
06:58There's this feeling of now or never.
07:00But I think the now or never is as it pertains to, are you a star?
07:05You know, are you going to be a face of the franchise type player?
07:08Or is this kind of what it is?
07:10A flawed guy who doesn't spin that well, who chases a lot, who strikes out a bunch, who
07:14is just not going to be a particularly great hitter at the major league level because he's
07:17got some holes.
07:18I think we're going to find that out as the season goes on here.
07:21It's still early.
07:22I still have hopes for Dylan Cruz.
07:23But I do think that the conversation has been flawed in that people act like this guy's
07:28like some bust or some terrible player.
07:31And that's just not reality at all.
07:32No, neither was the other extreme where this is, you know, he's going to hit a five run
07:35homer every time he steps to the plate, you know, because as the guy was on Natty TV for
07:39three years, Golden Spikes winner, you know, they win the College World Series.
07:42He's the he and Skeens, the two biggest reasons why they go one, two, you know, it's a fairy
07:47tale.
07:47It's a match made in heaven.
07:48Well, the reality wasn't true for that either.
07:51Right.
07:51So the truth is somewhere in between.
07:52So here's what I want to get back to.
07:55I think this house and Cruz thing are related in this way.
07:58The other, just to say this, the other story is that Brady House got sent down to the minors
08:03last night in the corresponding move, which is pretty stunning.
08:07He's 22 years old on his way to 25 home runs right now.
08:09Now, I haven't spoken to anybody about this.
08:11I don't have a great sense of this.
08:12Okay.
08:13But just reading the tea leaves, there are plenty of guys that aren't performing great, quote
08:18unquote, that they did not send down.
08:20They sent Brady House down.
08:22A bunch of guys in spring training weren't hitting at all.
08:25They sent Dylan Cruz down.
08:27To me, the theme is, it's fine if you're not, if you're struggling.
08:32If you're trying to do the things that we say to do and the process, if the process is
08:38what we want, you get to hang around for a while.
08:42We'll do more drawbeat vivas than a lot of fans probably want.
08:45You're going to see a lot more Jose Tena double switches and huge at-bats in games.
08:50There's going to be a lot of Drew Millis instead of, you know, somebody else down on the farm.
08:53Now, it's not as if Henry Ford is tearing the cover off the ball, but you see the point.
08:57If you're doing it the way we want you to do it, we believe eventually it's going to work.
09:01If you're not, we don't care.
09:04I don't care where you got drafted, who you are, anything, anywhere, you might get sent down.
09:10And that's the sense I have.
09:11Again, that's not based on speaking to anybody behind the scenes or anything.
09:14It's just pretty telling now.
09:15They've done this with a couple of first-round picks who we all thought were going to be in the
09:19team brochure.
09:20When you're saying, hey, come see the young Nats, take their next step, two of those three guys are now
09:25going to have significant farm time this year, which to me is really unexpected.
09:29But again, not a criticism, just an observation.
09:32They also don't have a lot of guys with options on this team.
09:35And Brady House is one of the only ones who doesn't just have an option, but he's got multiple options.
09:39I'm just fascinated by the fact he didn't call up a third baseman.
09:42So as you said, it's going to be the BeBoss tennis show at the hot corner, which I'm very, very
09:47surprised by.
09:48We can get into the Brady House side of this next on Grant and Danny.
09:52If you're a Nats fan and you want to hop in on the Cruise News, 800-636-1067 on the
09:57House Demotion.
09:57We'll chat with you about that too.
09:59800-636-1067.
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